Healthengine Self Serve Features - Acceptable Use Policy Follow

(Last updated: 17/07/2023)

This Acceptable Use Policy (Policy) informs the ways in which the Healthengine Self Service Features ('HE Self Service Features' or 'Self Serve') must be used by Healthengine’s customers. Any breach of the Policy may result in the termination of HE Self Service Features provided to you, termination of our agreement with you, or editing of your policies or messaging to comply with the Policy, and relevant laws and regulations.

This Policy applies to the following HE Self Service Features:

• Practice Policies
• Practitioner Policies
• Appointment Type Messaging
• Appointment Type Specific Reminders

HE Self Service Features enable you to write custom text to display to individuals who book an appointment with you through Healthengine, either via the web plug-in, app or the Healthengine website. The custom text may include practice policies, specific practitioner policies and appointment type specific messaging within a fixed character limit. For certain policies or messaging, the status can be set to either mandatory (if patient agreement is required) or optional.

Practice Policies

Practice policies are written information relating to the practice and which are presented to patients who use Healthengine’s online booking services via the web plug-in, Healthengine website or app to make a booking. These policies may relate to your practice’s:

• Billing policy

• Cancellation / non-attendance policy

• New patient policy

• Drug prescription policy

• COVID-19 policy

• Other practice policy

The purpose of these policies is to inform patients about various eligibility criteria, conditions and requirements your practice has with regards to patients making and attending their appointments. These messages appear on the web plug-in, Healthengine website and app booking form when a patient proceeds to make a booking. 

When set up by the practice, patients cannot opt-out of seeing these messages when booking through Healthengine. These messages can be set up as either optional or mandatory. In cases where the practice has set the specific booking cancellation / non-attendance policy question to mandatory, the patient cannot successfully make a booking without agreeing to the terms noted in the booking cancellation / non-attendance message.

The Practice Policies feature is not available for PAMS.

Practitioner Policies

Practitioner policies are written information relating to a health practitioner which are presented to patients who use Healthengine’s online booking services via the web plug-in, Healthengine website or app to make a booking. These messages only appear when a patient selects a practitioner at the start of their booking journey. These messages do not appear when a patient selects appointment time at the start of their booking journey.

The purpose of these practitioner specific policies is to inform patients about various eligibility criteria, conditions and requirements the practitioner has with regards to patients making and attending their appointments. These messages are not to be used to advise patients of any restrictions relating to a practitioner’s AHPRA registration.  These messages appear in the web plug-in, Healthengine website and app booking form when a patient proceeds to make a booking by selecting a practitioner at the start of their booking journey. 

Patients cannot opt-out of seeing these messages. Where the practice has set up these policies, and the patient proceeds to make a booking by selecting a practitioner at the start of their booking journey, the patient cannot successfully make a booking without agreeing to the terms set up in the message. Where the patient proceeds to make a booking by selecting an appointment time at the start of their booking journey, the patient will be able to make a booking without agreeing to the terms contained in the message.

The Practitioner Policies feature is not available for PAMS.

Appointment Type Messaging

Appointment type messaging is written information presented to patients when they select a specific appointment type in the booking flow. You can either set these messages as optional, which then displays as text within the booking form, or mandatory, which then displays as a pop up which must be agreed to by the patient before they can proceed with the booking. If you are an Healthengine enterprise customer, appointment type messaging can be applied to multiple locations with the enterprise group.

When set up, patients cannot opt-out of seeing these messages when they select an appointment type on the Healthengine Network. In cases where you have set these messages as mandatory, the patient cannot successfully make a booking without agreeing to the terms noted in the appointment type message.

Appointment Type Specific Reminders

Reminders are to "remind" patients to attend the practice for an upcoming appointment. There is no legal requirement for GPs to send reminders to patients about appointments, although a reminder may help reduce did not attend rates and save the front desk staff time in managing rebooking and cancellation requests from patients. 

Reminders can be customised on an appointment type level, meaning unique messages can be sent to patients attending different appointment types to better suit their needs. Practices can set these message templates from within Practice Admin.

Using HE Self Service Features

The following lists are provided by way of example and should not be considered exhaustive.

You must:

1. Only use HE Self Service Features with regards to practice policies to inform patients about relevant policies at your practice.
2. Only use HE Self Service Features with regards to practitioner policies to inform patients about relevant information regarding the practitioner and their requirements for appointments.
3. Only use HE Self Service Features with regards to appointment type notices to inform patients about relevant information regarding their appointments with you.
4. Only use HE Self Service Features with regards to appointment type specific Reminders to inform patients about relevant information regarding their upcoming appointments with you.
5. Use HE Self Service Features in a way that is compliant with all applicable laws including but not limited to the Australian Consumer Law and the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law.
   
   

You must NOT:

1. Include text which does not relate directly to practitioners at your practice and the services provided by your practice.
2. Use HE Self Service Features to market the products and services of another business.
3. Include content or messaging which may compromise a patient’s health care choices or are not in the patient’s interest.
4. Transmit any material that is libellous, defamatory, discriminatory, offensive or otherwise malicious or harmful to any person or entity. 
5. Use any phone numbers or external links to encourage patients to book with you outside of Healthengine.
6. Use HE Self Service Features in an unethical or coercive manner. 
7. Use HE Self Service Features to advise patients of any restrictions relating to a practitioner’s AHPRA registration.